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1 COPYRIGHT 1892. ^ 



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COPYRIGHT 1892. 



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Irjverjtive Progress^ 



HE remarkable inventive genius developed in the 
United States within barely a generation may be 
ascribed to the robust originality of the American 
people, coupled with the stimulus of great finan- 
cial rewards guaranteed by favorable legislation. 
The American patent system, which had its birth 
one hundred years ago, has witnessed a wizard-like 
transformation in mechanical appliances, in the utilization of 
nature's forces, and in all the conveniences and accessories of 
life. If we consider the stride from the primitive plow, with 
which the ancients tickled the soil, to the marvelous farm 
implements of to-day ; from the burnt-brick libraries of 
Babylon and Ninevah to the superb treasures in movable 
types and sumptuous bindings that stand, piled tier on tier, 
in the British Museum and the Library of Congress, we may 
truly realize how the world has progressed. Yet the most 
wonderful part of this advancement has been made within 
the period just mentioned. During that time we have had 
the disco^•ery of the telegraph, the electric light, and all the 
various uses of electricity. Within the same period we have 
seen the evolution of the printing-press from the clumsy 
hand-lever contrivance of Franklin's time, to the marvelous 



Hoe machine which prints and folds seventy-five thousand 
copies of a complete eight-page newspaper in an hour. In 
that time the locomotive engine, the steamboat and the lux- 
urious sleeping car have supplanted the primiti\e modes of 
travel which preceded them, and we have advanced from the 
old hand-spinning wheel to the wonderful weaving-looms 
and knitting machines of the present day. Besides all these 
we have had the discovery of the telephone, w^hich conveys 
the human voice, in conversation, hundreds of miles ; the 
phonograph, which records the sound of the \oice and re- 
peats its tones at the will of the operator ; the sewing ma- 
chine and the typewriter, which revolutionized methods in 
important branches of business, and even the convenient lit- 
tle lucifer match which replaced flint and friction. Let any 
man try to imagine the comparative condition of life and 
society if these patented discoveries had never been made, 
and he will measurably appreciate the benefits of the system 
that inspired them. 

The first patent law was enacted April lo, 1790, and un- 
der it the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War and the 
Attorney-General were the tribunal to determine the ques- 
tion of granting a patent. It was not until July 10, of that 



year that the first patent was issued, which was to Sanniel 
Hopkins for a new method of making pot and pearl ashes. 
Since that date more than 475,000 patents have been granted. 
Under the law of 1790, which remained in force until Feb- 
ruary 19, 1793, only 57 patents were issued, and on the 
latter date a new act effecting some modifications was 
passed, which stood until 1836, when the great law that really 
created the American system and " marked an epoch " was 
enacted. Up to this time only 9,957 patents had been issued, 
while in the fifty-six years following, down to the first day of 
January, 1892, a total of 466,315 were granted. In the early 
days of the English patent system a patent granted by the 
Crown was not even prima facie evidence of novelty, but 
the poor inventor was obliged to maintain his claim as best 
he could in the courts. The American laws previous to 1836 
were afflicted to some extent with similar defects, but under 
the new act of that year the Patent Office was vested with 
quasi-judicial as well as executive functions, the patent l)eing 



adjudicated upon in ad\ance, and possessing as soon as 
granted the attributes of a patent which, under the old system, 
had been tested by expensive litigation. Thus the patent 
acquires an immediate commercial value, and thus, under the 
stimulating eft'ect of fostering laws and large profits, inven- 
tive genius has developed and great results have been 
achieved. From three patents in 1790 there was a growth 
to 26,292 in 1890, and where one hundred years ago Franklin, 
a man of science, was content to lea\e the printing-press as 
he found it and as (nittenburg had left it three hundred years 
before, the last hundred years have seen it advanced to one 
of the most wonderful mechanisms in the age of wonders. 
And where a century ago the workman and the artisan were 
satisfied to jog along with such crude implements and 
methods as were at hand, to-day he is alert and thoughtful, 
looking to the attainment of better instrumentalities and a 
higher plane of action. 



TH£ T^AT^ENT OFFI©£. 



THE United States Patent Office is one of the most im- 
portant Ciovernmental institutions. It occupies the 
massive Doric structure, an illustration of which 
appears on another page, and which is, within, a \ast human 
beehive. It is the only bureau or department of the Govern- 
ment that pays its own way. In i.Sgo the earnings from fees 
anujunted to $1,340,372.66, while the total expenses were 
only $1,099,297.74, leaving a surplus of $241,074.92. llu 



office organization embraces a trained force oi examiners, 
clerks, and officials, a majorit)- of whom have been in service 
many years, and nearly all of whom are skilled experts pos- 
sessing the highest qualifications for the work to be performed. 
At the present time the entire force consists of the Commis- 
sioner, who is supreme, the Assistant Commissioner, three 
Examiners-in-chief, thirty-two Principal Examiners, and 
seven Chiefs of Division, with aliout 550 Clerks and other 




COMMISSIONERS OF PATENTS, 







UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE. 



assistants, making in all 605 persons on the roll. The ar- 
chives of the Office are valuable and interesting. The 
model-room, in the third story of the building, is a veritable 
curiosity shop. Here, in immense glass cases, arranged in 
balconies three tiers high, are stored nearly three hundred 
thousand models of all sorts and sizes, pertaining to all kinds 
of inventions. The fire of September 24, 1877, destroyed a 
large number of models which have never been replaced, but 
the collection that lemains furnishes material for more than 
one day of interesting study. There are models of almost 
every implement of human use, from the Hotchkiss Machine 
Gun to the toy pistol, from a steam engine to a common 
wood screw, from the great wind mill to a bottle stopper, 
from a steamship to a rat-trap, from a threshing machine to 
an ice cream freezer, from a cradle to a tombstone, and from a 
brick-machine or a folding bed to a fish hook and a toy hoop. 
There are jumping-jacks, dosing-bottles and life-saving 
boats, cooking-stoves, printing-presses and gate-openers, 
horse shoes, railroad frogs and sausage machines, corn- 
planters, cornshellers and corn-extractors, fans, corset-stays, 
and glove fasteners world without end. 

In recent years models are not generally called for and 
Science and Art have outgrown many of the contrivances 
which the model-room displays ; but in their day they were 
regarded as perfection in the various lines for which they 
were designed, and made fortunes for those who invented 
them. There is a strikingly humorous side to Patent 
Office research, growing out of the many peculiar and iunny 



things for which patents have been obtained or sought. 
Among these oddities is a tape-worm trap, to be inserted 
through the mouth and catch the unwary tape-worm when 
he \entures too far off his reservation : an illuminated cat, 
metal cat showing eyes of fire, etc., designed to be a holy 
terror to rats and mice ; the frontiersman's cannon-plow — 
beam of plow loaded with grape and canister shot, in case 
of sudden attack by Indians; a "cyclone-house" — house 
anchored at the four corners as protection against cyclones ; 
an artificial tail for horses — to improve their appearance; a 
de\'ice for making hens lay — when the hen deposits her egg 
in the patent nest it immediately disappears into an incu- 
bator and she feels compelled to repeat herself; a steering 
apparatus— fan attachment to hunting-dogs' tail to enable 
them to turn sharp corners. These are only a few of the many 
similarly unique devices that might be mentioned. In the 
line of toys there is an endless display, some of which have 
been among the most profitable patents issued. The little 
return-ball, with a rubber string attached to the hand, draw- 
ing it back when thrown, is one of these. It made an 
immense fortune for the inventor, simple as it is. There 
are over one hundred different toy banks, some exceedingly 
ingenious and unique, and dolls without number. 

To a novice, or one who has ne\'er gi\'en the subject 
thought, the great number of patents in some of the classes 
is surprising. Covering so simple a thing as a wood-screw, 
there are 97 different patents ; in the class of lanterns, 945 
patents, and for wash-boilers, 375 patents. For tobacco 




MODEL HALL, U. S. PATENT OFKICE. 



pipes and mouth pieces, 427 patents have been issued, and 
for bottle-stoppers, 539. These are among the simplest 
devices, but coming- to the more important classes, there 
have been 3,570 patents issued for sewing-machines 
and their various attachments ; for fire-arms, not in- 
cluding heavy ordnance, torpedo or machine guns, 3,118 
patents; for car-couplings, 4,931, and for knitting and 
weaving machines, 4,399. For agricultural implements, 
including planters, harvesters, threshers, and the whole 
range of machines and appliances, the total number of 
patents is 30,776, of which 7,271 relate to plows alone. 
These are fair illustrations, and it is not necessary to extend 



the list. It would seem that with this great number of 
patents, every possible improvement or device in these 
classes must be covered. But so it seemed to many a few 
years ago, when a majority of the present inventions were 
undiscovered ; yet inventive brains have gone on develop- 
ing new ideas, and more than half of all the patents issued 
have been granted in the last eleven years. There is actu- 
ally no limit to the possibilities, but the one thing suggested 
by the increased complications growing out of a continued 
multiplication of patents is the importance to every inventor 
of employing the most expert, skilled, and experienced 
attorneys to prosecute cases in all their stages. 



pT^OFIT<i, OF -pA'T'ENTc 



OF the nearly half a million patents issued to date, a 
large majority have been more or less profitable, 
not only returning money profits to the inventors, 
or their assigns, but also benefiting in a broader sense, the 
world at large. Many hundreds of these patents have 
made millionaires of their owners, while many thousands 
more have produced fortunes large and small. It is esti- 
mated that more than three-fourths of all the capital invested 
in manufactures in this country, a total of over six hundred 
and fifty millions of dollars, is directly or indirectly based 
upon patents. Of the well-known inventions that have 
produced enormous returns, a few examples may -be cited. 
The sewing-machine patents not only made numerous indi- 
vidual fortunes, but created several large and wealthy 



corporations. The telegraph patents realized an immense 
fortune to the original inventor and to a number 
of others. The Goodyear rubber patents, the original 
of which was a simple mixture of rubber and sulphur, 
formed the basis of vast manufacturing industries and gave 
immense wealth to hundreds of people. The McCormick 
harvesters and many other agricultural machines ha\'e 
reaped the earth's products and great wealth at the same 
time. The sleeping-car patents have made millions for their 
owners, and the electric and telephone patents have enor- 
mously enriched the inventors and all who are associated 
with them. These are only a few conspicuous instances, and 
while the list of millionaire patents, so to speak, might be 
increased to great length, it is not these which have realized 



the greatest total of wealth. It is the thousands and tens of 
thousands of lesser inventions which have each brought 
their discoverers a few hundreds, a few thousands, or a 
modest fortune, that amount to the most in the aggregate 
and have really resulted in the greatest benefits. And it is 
not necessarily the wonderful invention that attains great 
success. Sometimes a simple little device, like the paper 
fastener or the common buckle, which has special utility, 
will make several fortunes. It should also be understood 
that the great aggregate of patents granted is \astly swollen 
by the enormous number of improvements and attachments 
upon the large inventions, and these may be made by any 
one who can. For instance, the Crane and Otis elevators 



employ in their construction and operating mechanism over 
two hundred separate patents. The modern printing-press 
manufacturers own hundreds of patents which co\er the 
various parts that go to make the complete machine, while 
the great electric companies ha\e procured or purchased 
scores upon scores of patents necessary to the perfection of 
their various systems. And so it is all through the list. The 
field of invention is practically limitless, and great as are the 
rewards that have been realized by the wonderful and useful 
discoveries already made, still greater ones remain to be 
enjoyed by those who solve the numerous problems and 
hoped-for achievements remaining in the realm of the 
unattained. 



FAMOUci, iNV^sNTOT^a. 



THE names and achievements of many great inventors, 
whose discoveries ha\'e made them public benefactors 
and brought them fame and fortune, are quite familiar 
to all readers. It is scarcely necessary to speak of Benjamin 
Franklin, who first unraveled some of the mysteries oi 
electricity; of Robert P^ulton, who designed the first steam- 
boat ; of Elias Howe, who invented the sewing machine ; of 
Charles (iocdyear, discoverer of the rubber combination : 
of Samuel F. B. Morse, who in\ented the telegraph ; or of 
Cyrus H. McCormick, inventor of the great harvesting 
machine. These and many others, including Eli Whitney, 
inventor of the cotton-gin ; Thomas Blanchard, who patent- 
ed the tack machine, and John Ericsson, who designed the 



screw-propeller for \essels, and iinented the iron-clad 
monitor, all occupy a place of honor in our school text- 
books and encyclopaedias. Among the illustrious inventors 
of more recent years Thomas A. Edison stands first. Mr. 
Edison was born in Ohio, in 1847, and is, therefore, now but 
45 years of age. In boyhood he was a printer's "devil," in 
youth a telegraph operator, and in early manhood the 
in\entor of the quadruplex telegraph, the incandescent light, 
and many otiier electric and scientific appliances. Nearly si.x 
hundred and fifty patents have been granted to him, and he 
is still at w ork upon important problems. Among his latest 
and most wonderful productions is the phonograph. Ale.x- 
ander Graham Bell, who jjatented the telephone, was born 




PROMINENT INVENTORS. 



in Scotland. He is a noted writer on scientific subjects, but 
has never ranked as an in\entor, the telephone comprising 
his only patent, fi-oni which great wealth to himself and 
associates has resulted. Richard M. Hoe, the great printing- 
press inventor, was born in New York in 1812. His father, 
who was the first American machinist to use steam, was 
partner of Matthew Smith, inventor of a hand printing 
press which Hoe improved. Afterwards young Hoe made 
many inventions and impro\ements until he finally produced 
the wonderful rotary presses into which were fed ribbons of 
paper five miles long at the rate of 800 feet a minute, which 
other mechanisms cut, pasted, and folded. Robert Bruce, 
inventor of the type casting machine, was also born in New 
"S'ork, and is still living at the age of 89. Previous to his 
inventions, the casting of type was a hand i)rocess by which 
fifteen pieces per minute could be produced. After several 
trials he devised an improved machine which produces 140 
pieces per minute, and this machine is now in use by all the 
foundries, the sale of patents having brought the inventor a 
handsome fortune. Christopher Latham Sholes, the actual 
inventor of the Remington typewriter, was born in Penn- 
sylvania in 1819, and died at Milwaukee, Wis., in 1890. 



In early life he was a printer's apprentice, and later held 
several important public positions. In 1867 he completed the 
first crude model of the typewriter, in the patenting of 
which others were associated with him. For seven years 
thereafter he continued work upon the machine, making 
many improvements and taking out new patents until it was 
finally brought to its present state of perfection. Thaddeus 
Fairbanks, inventor of the scales which bear his name and are 
in use the world o\'er, was born in Massachusetts, in 1797, 
and died in 1886. He was early of a mechanical turn and 
while employed in the business of dressing hemp observed 
the defects in the scales then in use and began, in 1822, to 
work upon the invention which he finally perfected by vari- 
ous stages. George M. Pullman, patentee of the Pullman 
palace sleeping and vestibule cars, was born in New York, 
in 1831. At fourteen years of age he was clerk in a country 
store, and ten years later was a contractor for moving ware- 
houses in widening the Erie canal. Afterwards he went to 
Chicago, and was the first to apply machinery to raising 
whole blocks of stone or brick. In 1859 he began experi- 
menting with his improvements in railway coaches and has 
since obtained a number of patents. 



WHA'T" l^ ■p/\'V^HT/\SL^. 



NOT everything that is new is patentable. In the lan- 
guage of the statue : "Any person who has invented 
or discovered any new and useful art, machine, 
manufacture or composition of matter or any new and useful 



use thereof, not known or used by others in this country and 
not patented or described in any printed publication in this 
or any foreign country before his invention or discovery 
thereof, and not in public use or on sale for more than two 



years prior to his application, unless the same is proved to 
have been abandoned, may upon payment of the fees 
required by law, and other due proceedings had, obtain a 
patent therefor." The subject of the patent must have 
been " invented or discovered." Neither of these words is 
used quite in a dictionary sense. They refer to inventions 
having industrial value. Mere discovery is not patentable ; 
as, for instance, a miner could not patent the discovery that 
oil is found in the fissures of certain rocks, but he might 
patent a method of removing the oil or some new torpedo 
especially adapted to operate in an oil well — that is to say, 
a principle is not patentable, but a mode, method, or means 
of seizing upon the principle and putting it into service may 
be patented. The time or labor spent in the completion of 
the invention is not a factor of patentability. It is the result, 
whether the outcome of years of scientific research or of the 
happy thought of an instant. To say that an invention 
must be " useful," means that it must have some industrial 
value and be operative. A perpetual motion apparatus is 
not useful, nor is a spark arrester, which does its work so 
vigorously as to stop the locomotive. 

The statute divides patentable subject-matter into four 
classes : " Art, machine, manufacture, composition of mat- 
ter." The term " art " is intended to include those methods 
and processes which embody an act or a series of acts that 
may be carried out by hand or without reference to any 
especial mechanism, such as the methods and processes 
which form a large part of the acts of dyeing, tanning, and 



refining oil, etc. A "machine" is a body, or an assem- 
blage or combination of mechanical parts adapted to receive, 
transmit and modify force or motion, to do work. This 
term includes the great majority of inventions, for a transom- 
lifter answers the definition as well as a printing-press. The 
function of a machine is often claimed as a method, but it is 
not patentable. The planing of a board, the weaving of a 
fabric, or any mere operation of a machine, accompanies 
the machine and may not be patented as a " method." An 
"article of manufacture" is an article or fabric made as a 
finality, and not having any rule of action such as is found in 
machines and not involving the relation of ingredients : as 
for example, a woven-wire door-mat, a chain, a pen-holder, 
a plow-point, a lamp-chimney. A "composition of matter" 
is a compound of two or more ingredients forming a homo- 
geneous whole ; as a paint, a glue, an ink. The statute 
recites certain bars. The invention must not have been 
previously known or used by others in this country. A 
single use by another would negative novelty even though 
the invention be hidden from sight ; as a bolt in a safe or a 
feed-clamp in an arc-light. To get a valid patent the 
patentee must be the inventor of the device, but his own use 
thereof for two years before applying for a patent does not 
affect his claim. No amount of foreign use will affect pat- 
entability ; as, where a certain tenon for window-slats was 
shown to have been used for three hundred years on the 
church to which Luther nailed his theses, it was held not a 
bar. But the invention must not have been patented or 



described in any printed puhlicalion in this or any foreign 
country. Only wliat is claimed is patented. Other matter 
of description is cited as a publication. The age or language 
of the reference is immaterial. \'irgil and the Bible have 
been frequendy cited. The two bars just named co\er want 
of no\elty. There are two others which fall under the 
technical term of lache . The first is public use or sale for 
more than two years prior to the application ; that is, use in 
public or by the public in the way of business, or an offer 
for sale or actual selling, with or without the consent and 
allowance of the inventor. The use of a corset-steel for 



eleven years by a lady who afterwards married the inventor 
was held to be public use. Hut use in public for experi- 
mental purposes is not public use; as in case of the 
Nicholson pavement, which was tried six years near a toll- 
gate without losing right to patent. The other bar is 
abandonment— that is, the surrender of the invention to the 
public, or failure to prosecute for a specified time. Aban- 
donment is never presumed, but is a question of fiict. A 
patent is granted for seventeen years, but may be limited to 
expire with a foreign patent for the same invention by the 
same inventor. 



AtBOUT -pt^O©Ul^IN© T^A'T'SNT; 



EVERY person who has made an invention or discovery 
for which a patent is desired should first of all con- 
sult, personally or by letter, some first-class patent 
lawyer and expert. While it is not in any case advisal)le to 
attempt to institute any proceedings whatever until compe- 
tent advice has been obtained, it is also very important that 
great care be exercised in the selection of an attorney. There 
are numbers of patent solicitors in Washington and else- 
where, some of whom are qualified by previous study, 
training, and experience to prosecute the most complicated 
case from its inception before the Examiner to an infringe- 
ment trial before the courts, if necessary. But there are 
also some so-called attorneys who possess no such ([ualifica- 



tions. To obtain a valid and valuable patent in these days 
of multiplied inventions the highest skill in the preparation 
of claims and specifications is necessary. The cheap and 
unskilled solicitor may possibly, for the sake of his fee, get 
an allowance on one or two loosely-drawn claims, but these 
may often in the end be found practically worthless, and 
the patentee involved in litigation, expense, and disappoint- 
ment. It is an easy matter to learn where the competent 
attorneys are. The Tatent Oftice does not recommend 
particular attorneys, and it is a waste of time to adtlress the 
Office for such information, but the officials decidedly prefer 
that every application for a patent shall be presented in the 
best and most thorough manner. 



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